So was she; she curved her neck and carried her tail like a banner as he directed her toward his father.
Lord Withen’s expression changed as they approached; first discomfited, then resigned. Vanyel kept his the same as it had been all this morning; nonexistent. He kept his gaze fixed on a point slightly above his father’s head.
Behind him, Vanyel could hear the mules being led out to have the lead rein of the first fastened to the cantle of one of the armsmen’s saddles. He halted Star about then, a few paces from the edge of the yard. He looked down at his father, keeping his face completely still, completely closed.
They stared at each other for a long moment; Vanyel could see Withen groping for something appropriate to say. And each time he began to speak, the words died unspoken beneath Vanyel’s cold and dispassionate gaze.
I’m not going to make this easy for you, Father. Not after what you ‘ve done to me; not after what you tried to do to me just now. I’m going to follow my sire’s example. I’m going to be just as nasty as you are- but I’m going to do it with more style.
The silence lengthened almost unbearably; even the armsmen began picking up the tension, and shifted uneasily in their saddles. Their cobs fidgeted and snorted restlessly.
Vanyel and Star could have been a statue of onyx and silver.
Finally Vanyel decided he had prolonged the agony enough. He nodded, once, almost imperceptibly. Then, without a word, he wheeled Star and nudged her lightly with his heels. She tossed her head and shot down the road to the village at a fast trot, leaving the armsmen cursing and kicking at their beasts behind him, trying to catch up.
He reined Star in once they were past the Forst Reach village, not wanting her to tire herself so early in the journey, and not wanting to give the armsmen an excuse to order him to ride between them.
Father’s probably told them that they ‘re to watch for me trying to bolt,he thought cynically, as Star fought the rein for a moment, then settled into a more-or-less sedate walk. And indeed, that surmise was confirmed when he saw them exchange surreptitious glances and not-too-well concealed sighs of relief. Huh. Little do they know.
For once they got beyond the Forst Reach lands that lay under the plow, they entered the completely untamed woodlands that lay between Forst Reach and the nearest eastward holding of Prytheree Ford. This forest land had been left purposely wild; there weren’t enough people to farm it at either Holding, and it supplied all of the wood products and a good half of the meat eaten in a year to the people of both Holdings.
It took skilled foresters to make their way about in a wood like this. And Vanyel knew very well that he had no more idea of how to survive in wilderland than he did of how to sprout fins and breathe water.
The road itself was hardly more than a rutted track of hard-packed dirt meandering through a tunnel of tree branches. The branches themselves were so thick overhead that they rode in a kind of green twilight. Although the sun was dispersing the mist outside the wood, there were still tendrils of it wisping between the trees and lying across the road. And only an occasional sunbeam was able to make its way down through the canopy of leaves to strike the roadway. To either side, the track was edged with thick bushes; a hint here and there of red among the green leaves told Vanyel that those bushes were blackberry hedges, probably planted to keep bears and other predators off the road itself. Even if he’d been thinking of escape, he was not fool enough to dare their brambly embrace. Even less did he wish to damage Star’s tender hide with the unkind touch of their thorns.
Beyond the bushes, so far as he could see, the forest floor was a tangle of vegetation in which hewould be lost in heartbeats.
No, he was not in the least tempted to bolt and run, but there were other reasons not to run besides the logical ones.
There were - or seemed to be - things tracking them under the shelter of the underbrush. Shadow-shapes that made no sound.
He didn’t much like those shadows behind the bushes or ghosting along with the fog. He didn’t at all care for the way they moved, sometimes following the riders on the track for furlongs before giving up and melting into deeper forest. Those shadows called to mind far too many stories and tales - and the Border, with all its uncanny creatures, wasn’t all thatfar from here.
The forest itself was too quiet for Vanyel’s taste, even had those shadows notbeen slinking beneath the trees. Only occasionally could he hear a bird call above the dull clopping of the horses’ hooves, and that was faint and far off. No breeze stirred the leaves above them; no squirrels ran along the branches to scold them. Of course it wasentirely possible that they were frightening all the nearby wildlife into silence simply with their presence; these woods werehunted regularly. That was the obvious explanation of the silence beneath the trees.
But Vanyel’s too-active imagination kept painting other, grimmer pictures of what might be lurking unseen out there.
Even though it became very warm and a halt would have been welcome, he really found himself hoping they wouldn’t.make one. The armor that had so far been proof against pressure from without cracked just a little from the pressure within of his own vivid imagination. He was uneasy when they paused to feed and water the horses and themselves at noon, and was not truly comfortable until they saddled up and moved off again. The only way he could keep his nerves in line was to concentrate on how well he had handled Lord Withen. Recalling that stupified look he’d last seen on Withen’s face gave him no end of satisfaction. Withen hadn’t seen Vanyel the boy - he’d seen a man, in some sort of control over his situation. And he plainly hadn’t enjoyed the experience.
It was with very real relief that Vanyel saw the trees break up, then open out into a huge clearing ahead of them just as the woods began to darken with the dying of the day. He was more than pleased when he saw there was an inn there, and realized that his guardians had been undoubtedly intending to stay there overnight.
They rode up the flinty dirt road to the facade of the inn, then through the entryway into the inn yard. That was where his two guardians halted, looking about for a stableboy. Vanyel dismounted, feeling very stiff, and a lot sorer than he had thought he’d be.
When a groom came to take Star’s reins, he gave them over without a murmur, then paced up and down the length of the dusty stableyard, trying to walk some feeling back into his legs. While he walked, one of the arms-men vanished into the inn itself and the other removed the packs from the mules before turning them and their cobs over to more grooms.
It was at that point that Vanyel realized that he didn’t even know his captors’ names.
That bothered him; he was going to be spending a lot of time in their company, yet they hadn’t even introduced themselves during the long ride. He was confused, and uncomfortable. Yet -
The less I feel, the better off I’ll be.
He closed his eyes and summoned his snow-field; could almost feelit chilling him, numbing him.
He began looking over the inn, ignoring the other guard, and saw with mild surprise that it was huge; much bigger than it had looked from the road. Only the front face of it was really visible when he rode up toll; now he could see the entire complex. It was easily five times the size of the little village inn at Forst Reach, and two-storied as well. Its outer walls were of stone up to the second floor, then timber; the roof was thickly thatched, and the birds Vanyel had missed in the forest all seemed to have made a happy home here, nestling into the thatch with a riot of calls and whistles as they settled in for the night. With the stables it formed two sides of a square around the stable yard, the fourth side being open on a grassy field, probably for the use of traders and their wagons. The stables were extensive, too; easily as large as Lord Withen’s, and he was a notable horsebreeder.